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Using the Autodesk Forma/BIM 360 Server Connection

  • Updated

Important

Version: 25.3

This article describes how you can connect to an Autodesk forma or BIM 360 server using Solibri's BCF Live Connector. Please note that the integration is not available in Solibri Starter and Essential.

The article covers the following topics:

Configuring a Project on an Autodesk Forma/BIM360 Server

Before you connect to an Autodesk Forma or BIM 360 server and start working on a project, you need to first add the required permissions for users. To get started, you need to either open an existing Autodesk Forma/BIM 360 project, or create a new one.

  1. Add the required permissions for users.

  2. Configure the custom fields.

  3. Create folders for viewpoint files.

Adding User Permissions

To add the required permissions for users please see the following link provided by Autodesk Centralise project administration and user permissions.

Configuring the Custom Fields

While most of the default fields for the issues map directly to BCF topics, some require special handling to be supported. In an Autodesk Forma/BIM 360 project, there are three fields that require special attention: Priority, Label and Stage. Solibri supports these fields in Autodesk Forma/BIM 360 as custom fields.

If you need to use these fields in your project, you must create a custom field for each of the them and add the fields to all issue types that require them. Please note that to do this, you'll need project administrator rights. For instructions on how to create custom issue fields, please see here.

Please configure the three fields as described in the table below. For the values, you can insert the ones required by your project. Add the values as comma-separated lists.

ACC_Settings.png

Once you've configured these custom fields and added them to the issue type(s), they'll be supported in Solibri's Live Issue Details view and filters.

Creating Folders for Viewpoint Files

If your project is on an Autodesk Forma server, you'll need to create two folders to include images (viewpoints) of the issues in the project. This step is not needed for BIM 360 projects.

To create the folders:

  1. Go to Files.

  2. Create a folder called Project Files.

  3. Under this folder, create a subfolder called Solibri Issue Files.

ACC_Files.png

Connecting to ACC/BIM360 in Solibri

  1. In Solibri, go to File > Integrations and connect to Autodesk Forma/BIM360. For more detailed instructions, see here.

  2. Go to the BCF Live Connector layout and turn on the live sync:

  3. A dialog opens. Go to the Autodesk Forma/BIM 360 tab. Select the server and the project:

    Important

    When connecting, a Value Conversion dialog may appear, requesting you to create mappings for some fields between their local values and the values between the ones supported on the server.

Known Limitations

There are some known limitations in the current version:

  • Issue Comments: In ACC/BIM 360 projects, issue comments can be added, but not modified.

  • Filtering: At the moment, filtering with the "<Undefined>” will fetch all issues instead of only the ones for which the field is not present.

  • Issue Viewpoints and 3D Visualization: Solibri creates pushpin locations based on camera angles. I.e. we shoot a ray to wherever the camera is pointing. This means that in some cases, the actual pushpin location may not be exactly where the user intended it to be. And in case the camera angle does not end up meeting any component, the viewpoint will not be stored.

  • Project Folder: ACC/BIM 360 requires a special project folder for issue files.

  • Removing Viewpoints: Removing a viewpoint from a synchronized issue isn't possible, so clicking the rejected_icon_16x16.svg button below the viewpoint doesn't remove the image.

  • Component count: To keep the connection performant, in case there are more than 5000 components in an issue, the view will be saved without any isolation or other view related modifications. I.e. everything will be visible.Workaround: Make sure your views are zoomed in enough to keep the component count down.

  • Title and Description character limits: Forma has a limit of 100 characters in the title, and 1000 in the description. Surpassing these will trigger a synch error, which can be resolved by reducing the character counts. Unfortunately there is no meaningful messaging available through the Autodesk API at the moment to inform users of this, so it is simply something that needs to be kept in mind.

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